Rotten Apple

An eclectic potpourri of political comment & observations plus the insane ramblings of an old mythster: (that suffix modifies a noun (or adjective) to create a new noun that serves to associate a person or thing involved with the original noun. "mythster" - a person who is associated with myths

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Wednesday, November 09, 2016

As I recover from the shock of Trump's victory, I begin to see things more clearly and I realize that when the richest country in the world has three million homeless on any given day and 15% of our people are living below the poverty line while the top 1% enjoy the wealth of Croesus, there is something rotten in - America.

Donald Trump saw this paradox and built his entire campaign strategy around it. Hillary Clinton ignored the poor,the homeless and the hungry children and the African Americans . She dedicated her campaign to the preservation of the status quo- "America is already great" and a government of the elite, for the elite and by the elite.

Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette had their Robespierre and Clinton met her Trump.

"This is the revenge of Middle America, above all of a white working-class America troubled by changing social and cultural mores — not every American loves choose-your-gender bathrooms — and by the shifting demographics that will make minorities the majority by midcentury" from today's NYT - (Roger Cohen.)

Where do we go from here? Maybe Trump knows. We'll soon find out. One thing's for certain "business as usual" is not an option.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

As a youngster (from 7-11) I frequently attempted to divide the world into two opposing camps. “The good Guys and the Bad”, “White Hats and Black hats”, “Rats and Finks” etc. One day when I was explaining my latest dichotomy to my dad, he suggested that I might divide people into two groups: those who divided the world into groups and those who didn’t. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how behavioral scientists, psychologists and historians have spent a lot of effort trying to identify the characteristic that separates man from other animals-the characteristic quality or ability that is unique to humans. Tool usage was popular for a while but then we discovered that apes, chimps, bonobos, lab rats and several other species were quite skilled in their use of tools. Next, it was language but we share that skill with whales, dolphins, elephants and others, lately it’s been “consciousness” but nobody knows exactly what that is, so we’ll have to shelve it for a while, All of this scientific navel-gazing and tail-chasing was aimed at proving that that man is a unique, superior creature and not really an animal at all but as the Buddhist monk said to the hot-dog vendor “Make me one with everything” , are one with all creatures, sharing many qualities but each species possesses some unique qualities that are shared with all. Man can’t fly without a plane or a similar mechanical device. He can’t communicate stereophonically - expressing two distinctly different messages simultaneously but whales and dolphins can. He can’t navigate in absolve darkness with sonar like abilities but bats can.

Six years ago my wife suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm that seriously endangered her cognitive function and her life. As a result I began an extensive study of the brain and its functions in order to better understand what had happened and how I might help her recover. I purchased, borrowed and read a huge number of books about the brain and visited many websites providing visual insights into the mysteries of the brain and the ongoing research into its functions. Obviously, I am no expert on cognitive function, brain mapping or related fields but I think I can claim a better than average layman’s knowledge of these subjects.

Recently, I’ve been exploring the emotional lives of animals thanks to Carl Safina and his wonderful and deeply moving "Beyond Words*"carlsafina.org and primatologist Frans De Wall’s "The Ape and the Sushi Master*"*. The visceral impact of " Beyond Words"is very strong. Anecdotes about elephant family life and infant care had a huge emotional impact and both books helped me to realize the connections that are possible between us and them (the elephants, the porpoises and the whales)

Our connections to others are in many ways similar to the synapses that are created in the brain . First comes a biological or emotional tie, e.g. a sibling or a friend and then, through shared experience or propinquity this becomes a connection which can sometimes last a long time or even a lifetime. In contrast even the relationship with a sibling is tenuous and the shared experience tenuous the connection is never completed and the connection like a neglected synapse - withers and dies.

The question arises: can we experience empathy without a real connection? Can we ever experience real empathy with someone we don’t even know?

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Yesterday, I read an entry on one of my favorite blogs, “Time Goes By” hosted and written by Ronni Bennet. Her subject of the day was boredom and how as we get older, our lives seem to be taken up by the all the boring stuff we have to do - we’ve been doing most of them forever but Ronni was bitching about how all the stuff takes up some much of our time - and effort. Washing dishes, taking out the trash, sorting the recyclables, doing the laundry, mowing the lawn, raking leaves… and the beat goes on. For me there’s also pairing and dealing with the glitches on my hearing aids, gluing my dentures ( a couple of times a day), weeding the flower & vegetables beds etc. etc.. So, I was in a rather dismal mood before I read Ronni’s post but it really hit home. I made a comment in response and agreed that life does get pretty tedious in the “Golden Years” and was it really worth it? Maybe, when we pass GO for 30,000th time, we should just check out. If you happen to live in Oregon, New Mexico or the other states that allow assisted suicide it’s relatively easy and for the rest of us it’s a little more difficult but certainly not impossible.

This morning I woke up (literally and metaphorically with the realization that it wasn’t really all the boring chores but instead it was the lack of relief from the drudgery. The absence of exciting goals or realization of our dreams. When I was four I looked forward to being six and getting a two wheeler and going to “real school”. Later at about ten, I couldn’t wait to be 13 and go to high school. Then it was turning 16 and getting my driver’s license. Eighteen and buy a beer. 21 - adulthood. Then middle age and turning 65 and retirement- doing what I wanted, when I wanted to do it. Since then, I can’t think of anything I’ve looked forward to-no bike, driving, drinking etc.
And when I thought about that for a while I knew that what I looked forward to every day was -tomorrow and the wonderful thing about that is that since I’m free of any expectations. I’m never really disappointed! Now I’ve gotta go take out the garbage.

Monday, March 09, 2015

Rockaway is a beach community on a narrow peninsula about 12 Miles from New York City. I don't think I ever heard anyone call Rockaway the "Irish Riviera"For several years It was a kind of paradise for me and my cousins. We spent summers there in a two story bungalow on 116th St about 50 yards from the boardwalk and the beach.

My mother and a few of her ten sisters, along with husbands and kids (my cousins) shared the bungalow in the summer. My cousins, Patsy, Kathleen, Billy and I shared a bedroom on the second floor. We usually slept in our bathing suits, sand and all so we were out and about - as soon as the sun rose. We'd head straight to the beach to collect empty soda bottles to redeem at the supermarket. Billy, the oldest, had a sieve that he had made from an orange crate, screening wire and two broom handles that he used to collect loose change and miscellaneous items like rings, watches and other valuables that had fallen in the sand the day or night before

After we'd combed the beach and sifted some sand we'd stop at the A&P supermarket to redeem the soda, beer and milk bottles we'd collected, buy something for breakfast and then stop at the bungalow to eat. Sometimes it would be "Wheaties ,"Rice Crispies" or Velveeta on a roll 0r occasionally a Hershey bar and a glass of milk. There weren't usually any adults around before noon. A far cry from the over- supervised "smother love" of today.

After breakfast we might go over to the Bay (Jamaica Bay) and try to catch a few crabs or dig some clams. My cousin Billy would fish with a "drop line" - fishing line on a spindle-like thing with the usual hook, line & sinker . Then back to the beach and boardwalk, stopping at the hot dog stand or the corn-on-the-cob place for lunch. By lunch time there was usually a crowd at the 116th St. Beach- including a lot of soldiers and sailors especially on the weekends. At night the boardwalk was patrolled by soldiers with rifles and helmets, on the lookout for German U-boats and making sure that no lights were visible at sea. We swam in the ocean (one of our uncles, Billy's dad, was captain of the 116th St. Lifeguards) and we all had learned to swim in the ocean by the time we were five. We rode the waves (bodysurfing) and hung around groups of soldiers and sailors with their girlfriends.

We'd go home for supper when the beach started emptying and after eating we'd get ready for the evening's activities. Sometimes one of us would buy a ticket for the movie house whose back door was adjacent to our bungalow and then he'd prop the fire exit open and all of us would sneak in. Sometimes we'd get to watch the whole show, usually a "double feature" and sometimes we'd get caught by the ushers and get thrown out but after a while the ushers knew us all and it got very hard to sneak in without getting caught.

The morning papers- The Daily News, The Mirror and The Journal American, were delivered to the newsstand at the Long Island Railroad station every night between eight and nine PM. We'd buy ten copies of The News and The Mirror and take them up to Curley's Bar in the basement of Curley's Hotel and Bath House and sell them for a nickel and often more to the patrons of the bar. Mosly soldiers and sailors and their girls. After we sold the papers my cousins Patsy and Kathleen would do a jitterbug exhibition and the soldiers and the girls would clap and throw money, mostly nickels and dimes with an occasional quarter. Most nights we would go home, usually around ten, with at least two dollars profit which was pretty good money for three eight year olds in 1942.

Rockaway's amusement park, Playland, was about a mile or so from our bungalow on 116th St. We take the bus there once or twice a month. The Fun House was on of our favorites as well as the Roller Coaster, the Merry Go Round and the Bumper Cars. We'd have dinner there- Hot Dogs, fries and cotton candy. Then we board the bus for home and our sandy beds in the bungalow.

They tore Playland down in 1987 and built about 300 condos on the site and that was the end of " Old Rockaway" I drove out there about 20 years ago but by then not much remained to help me recapture "the good old days" but the excitement, adventure and freedom will live forever in my mind. I can't help but feel sorry sometimes for my children and grandchildren who never sifted the sands or jitterbugged at Curly's. Soccer and tennis lessons, swim team etc. are OK but they're not the same.

Monday, January 05, 2015

MY DAD WAS A REAL MAD MAN
Move over Don Draper, he was the real thing. After he got a degree in chemical engineering and squandered his inheritance on booze and high living,dad started looking for a job. That was just before the stock market crash of ’29 and jobs for engineers were scarce so my dad decided to try something different. He took a job at Garfinkle’s Department Store at the northwest corner of 14th and F Streets, across from the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC. He wrote copy for the retail ads the store ran in the Washington papers for a year or so and then headed north to Chicago where he was copy chief on the Montgomery Wards catalog for a while and then moved east to join the advertising agency, Campbell Ewald on Lexington Avenue in New York City.

From New York he went to Detroit to work directly with the Agency’s major client, General Motors. By then he’d acquired a family- my mom, my little brother Pat and me. I was the first born, named after my father and my grandfather who was living in Chicago at the time I was born. Dad “came of age” during prohibition and contrary to the efforts of the Temperance Union, by the time he was 18 he was already an alcoholic. His frequent job changes during the early years of his advertising career were due to the times when he didn’t return to work after lunch or didn’t show up for work in the morning.
That changed when he started living with wife number three. (he had been married briefly before he met my mother). His third wife to be soon laid down the law - either he gave up the booze or she’d give him up. And it must have been true love since he stayed with Claire until her death in 1968. He would be married twice more before his own death in 1984 .

We moved from a great big house in Birmingham, Michigan (an easy commute to the GM Headquarters in Detroit) to a smaller place in Baldwin, Long Island where I started school in the fall of 1940. My mother and my two brothers and I arrived in Baldwin ahead of dad who drove back in his new Hydramatic Oldsmobile. That was probably the first car equipped with fully automatic transmission but notwithstanding it’s high-tech efficiency dad managed to “total” it on the drive back from Detroit.
We didn’t stay very long in Baldwin either. The next st0p was an apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY. A doctor had been the previous tenant and the place had lots of closets with double Yale locks on the doors. I don’t know the reason for the move to Jackson Hts., maybe it was something about missing rent payments on the place in Baldwin due to dad’s spotty employment. I don’t know where he was working in ’41 but it was not a good year for our family and the rest of America. My grandparents both died that year and then in December, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor and my parents started a separation that ended in their divorce a few years later.

Mom, my bothers and I moved again. This time it was a two bedroom flat in Brooklyn and Catholic School for me. Dad went to live with Claire (3rd wife to be) in her apartment 0n East 48th St in Manhattan. Greta Garbo’s house was only a few doors up the street and there was a great French restaurant, The Cheval Blanc about 100 yards from the apartment. I visited there frequently until they moved to Westchester in 1943. On Saturdays, dad and I would have lunch at Costello’s Bar & Grill on Third Avenue. They had one of the best free lunch counters in the city. For the price of a drink you got a well filled sandwich - roast beef pastrami, ham or turkey with potato salad or cole slaw and a pickle . Then we’d go to one of the city’s great museums- Natural History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Planetarium , The museum of Science & Industry or we’d go to the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building or The Public Library on Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street. Once or twice a month we’d go to the theater or a night club like the Zanzibar or La Martinique that had floor shows.

It was about that time that dad was hired by a Boston- based ad agency to run their New York office. I think everyone that knew him was surprised he got the job and how well he did. He created a very good first impression with the people he met. He always dressed very well. Suits from Brooks Brothers (owned by his first employers, Garfinkel’s) Tripler, Paul Stuart and “Bespoke Tailors” on Madison Avenue. He took good care of his clothes. His shoes were always polished, clothes cleaned & pressed , ties from Sulka and The Custom Shop.
In 1942 Dad bought a house on Sparkle Lake, just outside of Yorktown Heights, 42 miles from midtown Manhattan and a bit beyond what was then considered reasonable commuting distance from the city. There were few commuters in the neighborhood when dad bought the place but by the time he sold it 20 years later, everyone in the area was commuting to NYC and property values had increased 1000% percent. Our house sat on a hill overlooking the lake and it was a five minute walk to the beach. It was originally been built as a summer cottage and the living space was limited but soon after he bought it dad hired a contractor to remodel the whole house. He added two bedrooms and a loft plus a second bathroom and a study/den. Most of the work was done while dad and his new family visited relatives in California.
It was a great place for kids. I was not a permanent resident but spent a few summers and school vacations there and made a few friends in the neighborhood. We swam and fished the lake and in the winter when the lake froze we skated and played hockey. Sometimes we would ski down from the lake and out onto the ice.

My half-brother and sister had a full-time “nanny” named Peggy. We became close friends and she and her boyfriend, Billy and I would go out together on Saturday nights. One Saturday night we went to the church bazar in Yorktown. One of the attractions was the “Wine booth” where we could put a nickel or a dime on a number and if the spinning wheel landed on it we won a bottle of wine.
We pooled all our change and eventually won a half dozen bottles of cheap wine that we drank in Billy’s car. That was my initiation and I got very drunk. Billy and Peggy drove me back to the house and left me lying at the back door. They rang the bell and took off and my dad dragged me to my room. When I woke in the morning, my dad said “if you don’t know how bad that is I’m not going to even try to tell you” and that was the only time he ever mentioned it.
That was a perfect example of my father’s philosophy of parenting, he called it “benign neglect” and he practiced it faithfully with me and all the rest of his children. The result was, that my younger brother Patrick dropped out of a promising career at Lever Brothers when he was 26 and ended up in Mexico where he smoked a lot of pot and grew soy beansprouts. Nick never held a permanent job and dedicated his life to abstract expressionist painting but rarely sold anything. My half-sister Nicole survived by marrying a rich guy who supported her after their divorce until their son reached 21. Skidmore never really tried out “the American way of life” but instead headed straight down to old Mexico after graduating from Columbia and taught English until he had a stroke a few years ago. And me, I had five different careers. Made some money and lost it in the restaurant business and got a good job and a new career when I was 62 but had to give that up when my wife’s employers transferred her from California to Austin Texas.

After a few years of running someone else’s business, dad decided to go out on his on and started an advertising agency with two partners.
Dad had brought several clients over from his previous company and his partners had done the same. He also got several new clients including a guy who sold incredible rose bushes by mail. My dad was really good at mail order advertising. It was his specialty and the agency and the rose guy were doing great until one day my dad got a call from the rose guy’s wife. She said that her husband had just been arrested for mail fraud by the postal authorities. After he had the full picture, dad knew he’d been screwed by the rose guy who had also screwed his growers and the customers who had bought thousands of “The World’s Most Beautiful Roses for only $3.98” The way he’d managed to do this trick was by not paying anybody for anything. He started by by paying the growers and the agency but soon he stopped and put all the proceeds in his pocket, the growers stopped shipping, so customers complained to the postal authorities and “the jig was up” as the con men used to say. My dad was obligated by law to pay the media - newspapers, magazines and radio for all of the advertising space that he had contracted on behalf of the rose guy. About $500,000. He was making pretty good money but he spent most of it so he didn’t have the collateral to pack a $500K loan from the bank.
Just when things looked very dark, dad got a call from one of his ex-employers, Ray Spector.

Raymond D. Spector was a wheeler-dealer/ entrepreneur who dad had worked for in the early forties. Ray respected dad’s talent for copy and marketing. It was dad who created the launch campaign for a new product that became a national sensation it was Serutan “spelled backwards that’s nature’s” Their slogan was “Life Begins at Forty”. It was a huge success but two years after the launch, Spector declared bankruptcy and went to the Bahamas with the profits. Leaving my father and other key employees in the cold without back pay and promised bonuses. Naturally dad was angry but when Ray asked him to join him in a new venture - Hazel Bishop Lipstick and said he would take full responsibility with the media for dad’s $500k obligation it was an offer dad couldn’t refuse but he would regret it before the year was out.
I joined the Marines soon after dad went to work for Spector. They launched “Hazel Bishop Kissproof Lipstick” with the slogan “Stays on you- not on him” Dad flew out to L.A. while I was stationed at Camp Pendleton waiting to go to Korea. I met him in LA and we went to the races at Hollywood Park. The next day we met Ray Spector at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Hollywood. We went to the swimming pool where Ray introduced us to Ralph Edwards who pitched his new TV show concept he had titled This Is Your Life. After he’d finished and left the three of us sitting poolside, Spector asked “So Neds two and three, what do you think of Ralph’s show. I wasn’t very impressed myself but after a long pause dad said “A little too corny for my taste but it might be OK for daytime TV.” and Spector then asked me, “what do you think junior?” “Same here sir, I thought it was kinda dumb”
“Corny? Dumb?” “I don’t think either of you guys understand anything about TV!” “I’m going to buy exclusive rights to that show before somebody else does” and that’s what he did and it became the top show on TV and stayed on top for several years but our judgement had some merit even though it was somewhat premature
By October 1960, Time magazine was calling This Is Your Life "the most sickeningly sentimental show on the air” By that time, Ray Spector had sold Hazel Bishop Lipstick and This Is Your Life” to Gilette for millions and retired. He died in Fort Lauderdale, FL in 2004.

Dad left Spector after Gillette bought the company. He found work as a copy writer at Ted Bates & Co, then one of the country’s top agencies. By that time I had started my own advertising career at the American Banker’s Association but after a year or so my boss and I started to buck heads. He was convinced I was trying to get his job and I thought he was nuts. I had hit it off pretty well with the head of the association, Charls E. Walker, who was later to become Secretary of the Treasury. He offered to move me to any job I wanted at the ABA but I had an offer from an ad agency that was very tempting.. One day at lunch with my dad I told him about the situation at ABA and asked him what he thought I should do. Take the agency job or hang in at ABA and transfer to the public relations department? Instead of telling me what I should do, he gave some advice that I’ve never forgotten. He said “You’ve got a problem that your brain can’t handle. The brain is just a calculator - it can add, subtract, multiply and divide but when it comes to complex problems like the one you’re trying to solve it can’t help you. You need to use your subconscious mind for that. Tonight, just before you go to sleep, review the problem and try to think of the reasons why you should or shouldn’t take the agency job. First thing tomorrow, when you wake up, you’ll have the answer - accept it and live with it and never look back” That’s what I did, I took the agency job and a year after I started, things were looking pretty good. I doubled my salary and was offered a big promotion and asked to go to Milan to be co-director of the agency’s newly formed Italian operation. Shortly after I was offered the job in Milan, I got a rather mysterious telephone call inviting me to lunch at the Delmonico Hotel with some unnamed people who wanted to talk to me about a job. My curiosity was aroused so I knocked on the door of room 214 at the Delmonico and was ushered in to large suite where a table was set for linch for four. My hosts welcomed me and I soon learned that I was lunching with the the CEO of N.W. Ayer Advertising. During the course of the luncheon they asked questions about my background and experience and over coffee I was invited to join their company in a very interesting position. I said I’d think about it and was about ready to leave when the CEO asked if I knew a good creative chief with heavy petroleum experience andI said “yeah, that would be my dad who was currently working at ted bates on the Mobil account” They were interested so I gave them his coordinates and a few days later he was having lunch in room 214 at the Delmonico.
In the end, decided against the move which was unfortunate because a few months later, he lost his job at Ted Bates.
He then joined the Open Space Action Committee as a writer and communications consultant where he stayed until he retired. He was also active in Westchester County politics for several years and ran for Mayor of Yorktown Heights twice but never got elected. He was smart and made a good impression but never developed an instinct for the jugular vein that is so vital for a successful political career.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

According to a report published in today's Morning Telegraph (UK) Robin Williams hung himself. He was evidently suffering from acute depression. The mad,incredibly inventive and totally original riffs on almost any subject, for which he was justly famous could have been stimulated by a bi-polar condition. I find it difficult to avoid associating Williams' death with that of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's heroin overdose. Both brilliant actors - both principals in their own tragedies. Only those who are completely engaged in life can experience the great highs and the terrible lows.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Those aren't teardrops on my keyboard - it's just condensation. OK maybe not all condensation. A couple of tears shed for the friends who have gone ahead maybe. Someone recently remarked that he knew he was getting old when he saw frequent obituaries in the paper about his friends and contemporaries. I replied that "you know you're really old, a 'Super Elder" when you don't see many obituaries for friends and contemporaries anymore.
When I stopped in Milan for a visit a few years ago, I made a few phone calls to friends I had made when I lived there for several years in the "sexy sixties" but after I got a few " No, sorry he died a couple of years ago" I stopped calling.
The older I get the less likely I am to make friends -especially in a place so far from where I spent most of my life. The connections tend to be tenuous and rarely survive more than a few encounters. My tennis partners and opponents are fine- even great for tennis but not much else. Is it me? Probably but like Popeye used to say between gulps of spinach : "I yam what I yam"